A modern rendering of Antigone where contact is maintained while separation remains.
The hand remains flat against the lid.
The hum of the ventilation is a low, vibrating drone that travels through the soles of my shoes and into my shins. It is the only sound in the room besides the soft, rhythmic scuff of shoes on the commercial carpet behind me. A woman in a dark suit stands by the door. She checks her watch. She does not look at me, but her presence is a weight, a measurement of the seconds I am allowed to stand here.
The air in the room is scrubbed and cool.
My palm is pressed against the lid. The surface is cold — a synthetic, unyielding chill that does not warm, no matter how long I leave my hand there. Beneath the transparency, three inches away, is the bridge of his nose. The skin there is waxy and fixed. I can see the individual pores and the slight, silver stubble along the jawline missed in preparation. He is right there. The distance is less than the length of my finger.
I push down. My weight shifts onto the balls of my feet, and the heel of my hand grinds into the surface. The material does not give. It does not even creak. It is a clarity that suggests he is reachable, yet my skin only meets the cold.
The vibration of the building pulses in my feet.
There is a smudge on the lid now, a faint, foggy oval where my breath has hit the surface. It obscures his forehead. I want to reach out and wipe it away, but my arm feels heavy, anchored by the pressure of my other hand. The woman by the door clears her throat. It is a dry, clipped sound.
I look at the fold of his ear. I know the texture of that cartilage. I know how it feels to tuck a stray hair behind it. I move my fingers, tracing the outline of the ear on the top of the casing. My fingernails make a faint clicking sound against the polymer. Click. Click. Click.
The hum in the floor intensifies, or perhaps I am just pressing harder.
He does not move. The light in the room is overhead and even, casting no deep shadows, making the entire scene look like a high-definition photograph that has been paused. I can see the weave of the fabric of his suit. I can see the way the tie is knotted, slightly too tight. I want to reach in and loosen it. I want to feel the warmth of his neck.
I lean closer. My forehead touches the lid.
The cold is immediate. It starts at the point of contact and spreads across my brow. It is a sharp, medicinal temperature. The smudge of my breath grows larger, whiter, turning his face into a blur of pale shapes.
I am leaning so far forward that I have to grip the edge of the metal frame to keep from slipping. The metal is textured, meant for grip. It bites into the pads of my fingers.
The woman moves. The sound of her footsteps is a series of dull thuds on the carpet. They stop three feet behind me.
“The next group is ready,” she says. Her voice is flat, a professional instrument.
I do not move my hand. I press my thumb into the corner where the lid meets the frame. There is a seal there, a thin strip of grey rubber. I try to work my nail into the gap. The rubber is firm. It resists.
The cold from the lid has numbed the centre of my palm.
I can see the rise of his chest, but it is static. It is a shape held in place by foam and wire. I stare at the eyelashes, counting them. One, two, three. They are still. Everything is still except for the vibration in my feet and the ticking of the woman’s watch, which I can hear now because she is standing so close.
I pull my hand back. The skin of my palm sticks for a fraction of a second before peeling away. It leaves a perfect, ghost-like print of my lifeline and the whorls of my skin on the lid, overlapping his chest.
The woman reaches out. She doesn’t touch me, but her arm creates a boundary in the air.
I take one step to the right. My shoes make a sticky sound as they lift from the carpet. The vibration continues in my shins. I look back, and the light catches the smudge of my breath and the print of my hand, two white marks hanging in the air over the body, slowly fading as the cool air of the room begins to reclaim the surface.
I move toward the exit. The door is heavy, brushed steel. I put my hand on the handle. It is the same temperature as the casing. I pull it open and step into the hallway, where the next four people are standing in a line, looking at their phones.
The hum of the room stays behind the closing door. My palm is still cold.